Kids raise funds for light bulbs

La Mesa Junior High School Builders Club member Jennifer Griffin puts together a compact fluorescent light bulb to be distributed to her classmates.

Builders Club at La Mesa Junior High School finally reached our goal to get everyone at La Mesa a compact fluorescent light bulb.

It took a lot of time and work, but we did it, thanks to Trisha Ortega and Doris Do from Peak.

Peak is an educational program that empowers students to manage their futures through real-world applications.

Our journey started when Builders Club was at an event called River Rally last September.

We talked to these nice ladies and asked if we could get some free light bulbs.

They ended up teaching six teachers at La Mesa about ways to save energy and donated hundreds of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

We also sold more than 800 "Be Green" bracelets to buy CFLs and received donations from the community to help us hand out light bulbs to save energy in our community.

By using CFL light bulbs instead of regular bulbs, students at La Mesa alone can save enough energy to light more that three million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gasses equaling emissions of almost 800,000 cars.

We took each light bulb and packaged them individually and put energy-saving tips in the bags.

Builders Club is trying to make La Mesa Junior High an Earth-conscientious and energy-efficient school.

Events that Builders Club members have done are a 5k run, Kiwanis Club pancake breakfast, River Rally, recycling and picking up trash at school, holiday food drive, Earth Day recycling project, plus more.

Builders Club was so excited to find out we reached our goal. It felt awesome. Every day we feel like we accomplished something huge.